revolution

Thursday, December 18, 2014

It was going be such an exciting day, a birthday of someone special and you wanted to gift them all the happiness. I headed to my usual Croma store and bought an Ipad mini, Bose bluetooth speakers etc from this store, the sales girl was so courteous and helpful with a encourage smile on her face, little did I know about the horrible experience that would follow.

As it happened someone else also gifted him an Ipad mini and the moment he opened the gift wrap, he told me about the other gift and we decided we would have this replaced and buy a TV from Croma instead. We called up the customer care, we told us that they do not have a policy for exchange but it depends upon the discretion of the store manager. Given that we are such regulars to that store and have bought so many things from there, also we had not even touched the Ipad box, we were already planning to where to put the TV.

I reach the store after work, the manager tells us that if we had not opened the packing he would happily exchange. I told him that we have not even touched it, this is exactly how I got it from the store and he kept insisting that it is not possible and we have opened it (almost implying that I am lying). After a long discussion he agreed to call the sales girl (rem the all smiling lady?), well now he was blatantly lying and saying that she did not open the packaging but rather we did it. After repeated questioning she eventually agreed that she had indeed opened it. Now the partner in deception, the store manager jumps to her (and his) aid and says that had you told her that it was a gift she would not have opened the packaging. Now I had a twinkle in my eye.

I told him that yesterday she roamed with me for an hour and helped me pick the gifts (even suggesting a few herself) and was well aware that it was meant to be gift. The sales girl was quick to save herself by saying that, irrespective of the purpose we are instructed to give a demo and always open the packing. Now this fellow, finding himself in a soup of his lies completely changes the topic and started arguing in completely off track of how a product opened can not be replaced notwithstanding the 20 minute long argument, going back of each of his words, tossing the customer service in the bin and on the verges of immorality. By now I was completely feed-up with all the bullshitting and stormed out of the store, promising myself to never ever buy even a paper pin from Croma.

Well if you don't intent to replace then just say so, you don't have to keep lying, arguing and mentally torture someone for 30 minutes.

When the likes of Flipkart and Snapdeal are creating new heights w.r.t customer first here is a real old school retailer. I expected a little morality from a store like Croma. I expected a little empathy for a very regular customer and I expected a little less blatant lying to a customer who just bought stuffs two days back. This is the Croma store at Kormangala, the heart of Bangalore, I wonder how would they be behaving at other locations.

Really horrible customer service.Croma, YOU SUCK.You sure lost a customer today and many more in the coming days, for sure.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Today, the 8th of dec'2013 marks a historic day for urban middle class in India, particularly in Delhi where Aam Admi Party (AAP), a party born out of popular imagination for a political class free of corruption and performance put up a stellar show by winning 28 of the 70 assembly seats though falling short of the majority mark of 32. How far can the AAP can build upon this mandate and convert this into long term substance is yet to be seen, as every young urban voter (and non-voter) looks upon AAP to bring a change to the Indian political class of highhanded and blatantly corrupt office bearers.

This day is also significant to highlight the utter discontent people have against the Congress party across the nation. The results spell that out in no unclear terms where, from being a party in power for the last 15 years in Delhi to being reduced to just a meager 8 seats and to having its worst ever performance in Rajasthan. Also it signifies a bleak future for the prince in waiting of Congress at least for the near term.

The other aspect these results highlight is the explosion of media houses in the country, each conducting its own exit polls and each claiming to be an expert at predicting future ala an Oracle. The variations in these predictions are wider than the content of statements made by our very own Piggy Singh. For example one of the predictions predicted 6 seats for AAP at one end and 28 at the other and yet each channel today claims to be spot on with their exit polls notwithstanding the mathematical impossibility of the same (unless some math-equivalent of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is at play). Each time these channels escape with either utterly asinine claims and shameless lies. Here I plan to give each on you a sense of the non-sense rolled out by the multitude of Indian media house by comparing their various exit polls predication and the reality of the results.

The exit-polls data is as shown on the various news channels and their websites on 4th of December and the actual results as shown on the Election commission website on 8th Dec'2013.

Fallacy of exit-polls and reality

Clearly no one came any close to "Spot-onNess" as each one of them have been ranting the whole day.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Well if you are a programmer and understand how software works and know how to quickly code up HTML/CSS/JS/PHP and you are thinking to move to Drupal, then mate you are where I was a week back.

There are tons of tutorials on the web from very basic to advanced, but its too much to go through and completely unorganized. Here I will give you links (mostly video) to understand important parts of drupal as quickly as possible and just get started with making our own website with the looks and features you want.